Precious Enemy

King Solomon asserted, "love is as strong as death" (Song of Solomon 8:6). Solomon, the wisest of all Israel's kings, recognized that while every human would eventually succumb to death, death is not ultimate in power. The God whose essence is love designed and created both human life and death as instruments for the display of his own splendor and purposes. Neither human life nor death, then, can deviate from God's ultimate purpose and good for the creature made in his own image.   Biblically, death serves as the perfect foil to mark both the immeasurable value of human life and at the same time the relatively limited value of it. Rather than either worshipping or desecrating this finite gift of human life, we can value it rightly and also worship the God who, in his literally infinite wisdom, gives and takes away life in accord with his good and gracious purposes.